On the evening of November 4th, over 30 educators from six districts came together at Blair Elementary in Richmond to share, think, learn and have dinner together. This group is comprised of the leads for district teams that are involved in the BCAMT Cross-District Collaborative Inquiry looking at Reggio-inspired mathematics. Thank you to Lauren, April and Jaclyn for hosting us in your inspiring classrooms!
Richmond hosted visitors from Delta, Surrey, Burnaby, Vancouver and West Vancouver. Upon arrival, displays of materials, examples of provocations, handouts and make and takes were available.
We had the Osmo (see playosmo.com for more info) out for exploration - the Tangrams and Numbers games are very well connected to the goals of our curriculum.
And we shared some new resources from thinkined.com that we are going to use to inspire both math provocations and math stories.
A collection of picture books were shared that we are using to inspire mathematical inquiry. A book list can be found here:
Download Book list-mathematical inquiry
Also, in the above photograph are some photo provocations that attendees were able to pick up to use in their classrooms as starting points in mathematical provocations. All of these prompts are focused on big ideas in the mathematics curriculum. The photo files can be found within the instructional resources page in the right side bar of this blog.
Representatives from each district shared a story from their districts as well as described what structures were in place to move this project forward within their districts. Districts are offering after school study group series, dinner sessions, events on pro-d days, etc. Surrey shared some of the materials they have been using in classrooms including a large pegboard, inspired by our large geoboards from the spring. They have noticed a lot of collaboration and mathematical discourse as students uncover all sorts of interesting mathematics. I forgot to take a photo so am hoping someone from Surrey will post the board being used in their classroom! We do have an active presence on twitter and use the hashtag #BCAMTreggio to collaborate and share.
Two teachers from Annieville Elementary in Delta shared the story how an inquiry into shapes evolved in their shared classroom. Alana and Kelli maintain a classroom blog which can be found HERE. They shared their documentation panels from their shape inquiry, showing where the inquiry started (from students' interests and questions) and how it moved through various mathematical experiences.
Marie Thom from Richmond shared her thoughts on the affordance of materials and loose parts, provoking our thinking about choosing and using materials with purpose and intention.
After dinner together, we continued our conversations by looking at some mathematical routines that complement the work we are doing with provocations. Many of our grades 1-5 teachers are conscious of curricular expectations and are finding a tension between teaching through inquiry and provocations and making sure they address the curricular content adequately. Drawing from the following resources -
High Yield Routines (published by the NCTM)
Number Sense Routines by Jessica Shumway
wodb.ca
tedd.org
I shared how these routines, such as number talks, quick images, counting collections, choral counting, etc, are aligned with the practices and principles we are investigating in our professional inquiry. These routines can be use as a way to build a math community with the whole class but also can be used in a guided math context with small groups. The routines all embody a focus on a pedagogy of listening, a responsive curriculum and collaborative, socially-constructed learning. They also can be used across grades (k-12) and across mathematical topics - they become part of the culture of doing mathematics, thinking about mathematics and talking about mathematics in your classroom.
I shared several examples and video clips from my first go with counting collections in a K&1 class and 2&3 class at Diefenbaker. A blog post about this experience can be found HERE.
We ended our evening with Michelle Hikida and I role-playing how a planning session might go for us. We've had lots of questions about where our inquiry questions, provocations and lesson ideas come from so we thought we would just talk through our process. A post will follow about this soon!
We have interest across Canada and beyond in this project but first, we are going to find ways for teachers from Vancouver Island, Saltspring and the Okanagan to join our growing community! Skype, webinars, elluminate...all sorts of possibilities!
As one teacher said to me (paraphrasing her words...) and why I think this project has been embraced, particularly in BC:
"This is it. When colleagues ask me what the redesigned curriculum actually looks like in aclassroom, this is it. This way of teaching and learning math pulls it all together in a way that is so good for children."
~Janice